


Everything's Fine

by fanfoolishness (LoonyLupin), LoonyLupin



Series: Level 10: Agents of Shield Fic [3]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Brainwashing, F/M, Gen, Mental Health Issues, POV Phil Coulson, Past Character Death, Phil Coulson Needs a Hug, Phil Coulson's Cellist, Post-Battle of New York (Marvel), Post-Episode: s01e06 FZZT, Post-Episode: s01e11 The Magical Place, Post-Episode: s01e14 T.A.H.I.T.I., Post-Episode: s01e17 Turn Turn Turn, Post-Episode: s01e19 The Only Light in the Darkness, Post-Episode: s01e20 Nothing Personal, Post-Episode: s01e22 Beginning of the End, SHIELD, Tahiti is a Magical Place
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2015-07-27
Packaged: 2018-04-11 14:08:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4438451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/fanfoolishness, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/LoonyLupin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of the Battle of New York, Coulson tries to cope with his death... and what he learns about what's been done to him.  It doesn't go well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything's Fine

Coulson’s awake too early again.  

He sits up, swinging his feet over the edge of his bed.  He sits there for a moment, his elbows resting on his knees, hands loosely folded together.  

He glances at the clock.  Barely four a.m.  Too early for any reasonable person to be awake.  May will probably be up soon, though.

It wouldn’t bother him so much if this was the only time.  He’d chalk it up to an aberration, the way he did at first.  He forces out a short, sharp breath, then rises from the bed, slightly unsteady on the balls of his feet.  He’s tired, but not enough to sleep.  He’s far too awake for this hour.

He can’t put his finger on what seems to be waking him up.  It seems like nothing, except that he never used to have problems sleeping before.   Before the Battle of New York, before he felt that searing pain in his chest, before he struggled to breathe through the blood filling his lungs.  He remembers the copper taste of blood in his mouth, the effort it took to speak, the way he… faded.

Simmons tells him he’s normal, that he’s perfectly fit for a man of his age.  Small comfort, that comment, but he’s seen the results himself.  Perfect blood pressure, heart rate, endurance tests, bloodwork.  Everything’s normal, and he remembers what May says, that he should be different after dying.  

He’s seen the psych reports, too.  No post-traumatic stress.  No depression.  Mentally fit for duty.  All systems go.  Everyone thinks he’s fine, and maybe he should agree with them.

But he doesn’t think he’s fine.  He hasn’t felt fine since New York, no matter what May tells him.  It frustrates him that he can’t put a name to what’s wrong.

He tries to catalogue the problems, standing there in the dark room, shifting his weight from side to side.  It’s just little things.  Like his bare feet against the thin carpet at four in the morning.  His toes work well, curling against the fibers.  There’s nothing wrong with the bones or muscles or nerves.  But he shouldn’t be standing here at all, he should be sleeping, should be dreaming –

_White sand beach, azure skies, turquoise water sparkling in the sun._

_Did I fall asleep?  For a little while._

_But ah, that’s good.  It means you are relaxed._

_That’s precisely how I’m feeling.  Relaxed.  Honestly, Tahiti’s too good to be true._

_I know.  It’s a magical place –_

He wipes his forehead.  It’s damp with a cold sweat, and he shivers, even though his shorts and shirt should be warm enough.  He doesn’t dream much anymore, but when he does, he’s always  _there_.

Coulson finds himself pacing, his feet tracing a familiar path around his office in the dim light from the monitor over his bed.  It’s a circuit he’s made too many times.  That seems wrong, too.  His hands curl, uncurl at his sides, fingers working perfectly even if he still feels rusty in the field.

He pulls his lower lip back against his teeth, releases a long breath.  Funny how Tahiti’s so often in his dreams, but seems so far beyond him.  Or, well, funny’s not the word for how it’s bright and vivid in his head, and yet he can’t remember what it really felt like to have the sand crunching under his feet, the waves lapping gently against his legs, the taste of mai tais cut with the smell of the sea.

He sees it, but he can’t feel it.  Funny’s not the right word at all.  Is that how memory’s supposed to work?  He doesn’t think so.  

Maybe he would feel better if he could get his hands on that Death and Recovery report.  His own words to Skye seem damning now.   _If S.H.I.E.L.D. keeps a secret from you it’s for a good reason!_

But this?  Why keep it from him?  It’s his own body they’re talking about, his own life and death, and they won’t let him see it.  Eight seconds… or was it forty?  He tries to skirt the thought that presses against his mind, but it’s getting more insistent, and in the dark he can’t keep it from looming heavy over him.   _What are they hiding from me?_

It’s the middle of the night, and his feet fall against the carpet in step after steady step.  He considers getting back into bed, but experience tells him it’s a futile exercise.  It’s been a long time now since the first time this happened.

_I don’t **feel**  fine._

* * *

The shower is hot and welcome, water streaming down his head and shoulders, and even if he has to lean against the wall for support, even if his cheek and forehead sting wickedly in the water, it still feels good.

It’s only been three days since he was taken on the bridge, but it feels like it’s been a lifetime.  He’s eager to wash the dust and sand of the Mojave away.

He reaches for the soap and it slips between his fingers, dropping to the bottom of the floor.  He bends down to pick it up, but has to reach out a hand to steady himself against the wall.  Simmons has cleared him of any serious injury, but she was still quite strict with him, insisting he not overexert himself.  He sees why.

Coulson takes a deep breath, then grabs the soap in one hand, straightening up.  His head pounds, but he stays standing.  

He tries to focus on the task at hand.  He lathers up the soap, scrubs at his hands until the dirt and blood embedded in his nails comes loose.  He doesn’t wince when the soap gets in the scrapes on his knuckles.  He merely lathers and rinses, lathers and rinses, lets the soap wash away until his hands are clean again.

He applies the soap gingerly to his side, where a nasty bruise has formed beneath a stinging burn.   _Electricity jolting through him, muscles seizing up, slamming back against the bed –_

No, he’d prefer not to think about that.

_And she did love you._

Or that either.  He huffs, grimacing as his hand brushes against his back where they’d jabbed him with something that knocked him out.  The pain distracts him from thinking of Audrey and the last night they had together, before everything changed.  Dinners at the Richmond… how did Raina even _know_  about that?  He’d only ever told a handful of people about her, and never details that small.

He doesn’t want to think about it, and he keeps washing up.  The dried blood on the side of his head takes longer to clean, as it’s been there for days.  It flakes off beneath the soap and the spray of the shower, flecks of maroon circling the drain beneath his feet.  He doesn’t even remember when he got the head wound.  Other memories crowd out that information, waiting to be recalled.  

_Please let me die, please let me die, please let me die –_

He gasps, sticking his head underneath the shower spray.  The sting helps pull him out of that dusty room in the desert, out of that machine whirring around his head, out of that surgical suite, but it doesn’t last long enough.

He mouths the words again, unable to stop himself.   _Please let me –_

Coulson’s shaking.  His legs don’t want to hold him up.  He grits his teeth in frustration, leans hard against the wall, slides down until he’s sitting directly in the path of the water.  He mops his face with his hands, trying to get the water out of his eyes.

He had wanted so badly to remember.  He’d craved it, ached for it, lain awake at night trying to understand what was missing.  

 _If S.H.I.E.L.D. keeps a secret from you, it’s for a good reason!_   But keeping this secret from him – keeping it from Audrey –  His hand forms a fist, jittering at his side.  He can’t bear to think about it, but it won’t leave him, not now that he remembers.  Remembers the way he’d laid there, pleading, begging, too weak to scream, the  _pain_  –

He tries a rueful laugh, another attempt at distraction.  His voice is rough, and it’s difficult to recognize as his own.  It doesn’t sound like laughter.  It’s a moment before he realizes it’s come out as a sob instead.

* * *

Coulson wonders if he is any better than the people who brought him back from the dead.  It’s a discomfiting thought, mixed with guilt and a vague sense of dread.  He watches the endless ocean pass beneath the window.  The Guest House is nothing but rubble, T.A.H.I.T.I. still a mystery but nothing, nothing like a white sand beach with an island breeze.

Coulson keeps visiting Skye.  She’s getting stronger every day, saying a few words now here and there.  Coulson was there the first time she opened her eyes, and the weak smile she gave him had heartened him.  Maybe it won’t be a problem after all.

But he still wonders if he’s done the right thing, finding the drug.  Simmons visits him daily.  Sometimes she’s chatty and curious as he unbuttons his sleeve and rolls it up past his elbow, as she slides a tourniquet up his arm.  Other times they’re both quiet, Simmons deep in thought as she slips a needle into his vein.  She switches arms every day, cheerfully telling him that if she’s not careful his veins will scar.  It’s not a thought that comforts him, but he knows it’s necessary for both him and Skye.  If there are going to be any problems from the GH-325, they’ll show up in him first.  He’ll be Skye’s canary in the coal mine.

Coulson fights back a yawn, rubbing at his eyes.  He’s still not sleeping well.  He had thought he would get a little better after the desert, hoped for it more than he had admitted to himself.

He knew it wouldn’t get better right away, of course.  Decades with S.H.I.E.L.D., it wasn’t the first time he’d been tortured.  Probably wouldn’t be the last.  Even with help, experience, debriefing, it always took time – days, sometimes weeks – for the sear of those kinds of memories to fade.  He’d expected it to take a while.

Instead the memories intrude more frequently, not less.  It’s not the torture at the hands of the Clairvoyant’s followers that still weighs on him; those memories had indeed become more manageable as the days went on.  He’d been able to use techniques he’d used before, exercises to help ward off post-traumatic stress.  They had worked, to an extent.

Cattle prods, beatings, confinement, they’ve turned out to be the little things compared to doctors standing cold and impassive at his side as he suffered, or the sight of that alien blue and lifeless, hidden behind rock and steel.  When he does sleep, he dreams of surgical bays and people in scrubs, the ragged cries of his own voice, a door marked T.A.H.I.T.I. in block letters.  Sometimes he prefers the insomnia.

He’s read through the report from Fury, trying to understand, going through it again and again.  It’s long, pages upon pages.  Yet he fears he’s only scratched the surface.  

The details flicker through his mind.  The medical jargon he can ignore to a certain extent, not having a good mental picture for how severe  _atrial rupture_  and  _aortic dissection_  are.  It’s the pictures that linger more powerfully, his body laid out on a metal table half under a white sheet.  They are almost fascinating in a way, between the bloodlessness and the way his skin seems to sag off his cheeks.  Fascinating until he remembers that he wasn’t just dead for a moment, but that he had been a full-fledged corpse.

He’s here now, but at what cost?

He looks out the window, watching the waves far below through breaks in the misty clouds.  There are islands down there, specks of green rimmed in white, but he wonders if they’re merely covers for something dark and cruel too.

He tries not to let these things weigh on him.  But when he thinks of Skye sitting up in her hospital bed, smiling through the pain, he wonders what will become of them both.

* * *

_Trust the system._   Words he’s always lived by, and he’s trusted that system more than anything else in his life.

But hadn’t he trusted Tahiti, too?  He grimaces, mouthing  _a magical place_.  Even under his breath the words taste like sawdust; words that aren’t his, words that somebody wrote into his mind.

His arm throbs.  He doesn’t remember how he cut it, sometime during his fight with Garrett.  He probably needs to change the bandage again; the wound keeps oozing even through the hastily placed sutures.  It’s unpleasant, but a welcome diversion from his thoughts.

S.H.I.E.L.D. has fallen, Hydra has infiltrated, and all that remains rides on this little set of coordinates shining from the badge he used to wear next to his heart.  He cradles it in his hands.  The weight of it is foreign to him for the first time in decades.

They were supposed to shield the world, and instead one of its greatest evils is swallowing them whole.  Trusting the system has left bodies piled up in the once-glittering hallways of the Hub.  Discovering Garrett was the Clairvoyant has him furious, but it’s May who has him reeling.

Coulson has never been flashy with his anger.  Isn’t prone to outbursts, keeps his head well under pressure.  It’s all there in his file, everything neat and orderly.  A page here about his calm, unflappable responses to most crises; a page there about conscientious objections raised by multiple doctors trying to bring him back.  Fifteen pages about the subject’s state of advanced decay, the lacerated heart, the hemothorax, the neurological damage…

She knew, she  _knew_ , and she dared to tell him that his brain could be filled with Hydra’s lies, that Fury wasn’t even in charge of T.A.H.I.T.I., that someone could be playing him like a puppet –

No.  That’s not – he doesn’t need to think about that right now.

But he can’t help it.  He’s nauseous, sick with everything May’s told him.  He remembers her years ago, bruised and battered, sticky with blood, shaking and dead-eyed.  He remembers the way he folded her into his embrace, held her as she wept.  Her recovery has taken so long.  Until a few days ago, he was glad to help her in any way he could.

And he’d been glad that May was there to help him, too.  She had had a way of knowing when he was unsettled, checking in on him.  Even with everything they’d gone through together, she still had to tease things out of him.  

She knew how he operated.  It wasn’t that he hid completely from his emotions, not exactly; but he kept them pushed aside until they absolutely needed to be addressed, until he couldn’t avoid them any longer.  Then he’d face them.  May was exceptionally skilled at finding those moments, waiting until he was ready to speak to her, comforting him as much as she could.

She’d noticed he wasn’t sleeping, let him talk to her.  She’d been there after he got his medical results back, and again when Fury sent over information on T.A.H.I.T.I.  This whole time, she’d said she only wanted to help him.

He’d been  _grateful_  to her for it.  And then to find out this betrayal, to find she’s been  _spying_  on him, that she’s been making sure he doesn’t need to be put down like an  _animal_  –  To find out she’s been watching him stumble in the dark, sleepless, groping,  _blind_ , tortured for what he didn’t even know, drifting in a magical place –

He grips the badge so hard his knuckles whiten.  

* * *

He lets Triplett drive back to where they’ve hidden the small jet on the outskirts of Portland.  They take Foster out and out, towards Damascus, Estacada.  There’s no traffic this time of night.  But his thoughts aren’t on Foster, even though he notices the way the street is changing since the last time he was here; gentrification creeping in, pubs and coffee shops among the rundown houses with junker cars parked in the yard.  He’s back downtown at the Schnitz, strolling NW 23rd, fancy dinners followed up by artisan ice cream or craft beer, walking the Waterfront and people watching like before.  With Audrey.

She knew there was no guarantee with his line of work.  He’d made that much clear to her, and it’s the only thing that keeps him together now as they drive.  He’d told her, early on, something could happen to him.  Warned her the best he could.

But even with his warning to her, he’d never heeded it himself, not until his shirt was heavy with his own blood and he sat there gasping, dying, against a cold metal wall.

He sags in his seat, lays his head against the window, stares out into the dark as the suburbs pass him by.  She’s back there in her apartment now – it was always warm there, a good place to grow the succulents she liked.  She used to laugh about it, the way the plants weren’t really a Portland thing, but she killed every other plant she’d ever owned.  He’d liked the view of the Willamette the place afforded, and it was a perfect place for movies on the couch and languid mornings in bed when he could spare them.  He pictures her perched on the end of the couch in her favorite spot, in her favorite blanket, crying for him, and it’s more than he can bear.

Coulson had thought, maybe, he could keep her out of mind.  So much has changed – it was the risk of this work, his  _life’s_  work – but how could he tell her now?  How could he explain?

He rolls down the window and the night air is cool and moist on his face.  He loves this about Oregon, the smell of Douglas firs and the hint of rain always on the air.  He loved it even more with her.  He wonders what it would have been to go on the coast trip, hiking the old growth forest she’d told him so much about, smelling the sea air at Road’s End.  She’d been so excited, beaming as she showed him the maps and the itinerary she’d drawn up.  

Whales, she’d promised him.  Puffins and harbor seals.  She wanted him to see the beauty of Oregon’s nature.  He’d come up with his own list, the lighthouses at Cape Meares, Yaquina Head, Yaquina Bay; the Tillamook Air Museum with its hangars filled with World War II planes; hell, the cheese factory.  He wanted to see if the cheese curds were as good as those in Wisconsin.  She swore he’d love it all, and he believed her.  But he had really only been able to focus on her smile –  

She’d been so beautiful.

He swallows, leaning his head half out the window.  The wind stings his eyes.  He wipes at them with the back of his hand.

He hasn’t cried since the Mojave, and it doesn’t feel any better now than it did then.

* * *

The message is stark against the landscape background.   _WARD IS HYDRA._  Skye’s warning.  A part of him is proud of her for keeping her head, but it’s very, very little consolation.

Simmons’ tears are still drying on her cheeks, and Fitz’s rage and hurt cut Coulson to the core.    Triplett’s disgust is palpable.  They wait for him in the next room, hoping he’ll have a plan for them.  Words of wisdom, something to save the day.  That’s what he does, after all.  Maybe that’s why they brought him back.

 _Trust the system,_  he remembers, and he reaches up, traces the jagged letters carved into the sunset and the silhouetted trees.  This is where his trust has gotten him. A dead man, a traitor, one of his team in grave danger.  He should have known.  How could he have missed it?

Something in Ward’s voice should have tipped him off months ago.  An aberration in one of their operations, some look, some movement that felt wrong.  There had to have been something Coulson might have overlooked, because if there was, that meant maybe he could recognize a traitor in their midst if it happened again.

He feels adrift, cast into a raging sea without a life preserver.  It’s hard to know which way is up when Eric’s body is on a table in the next room and Skye’s been taken.  If only he’d not let his feelings for Audrey get in the way, they would have been here –

But then Audrey would certainly be dead by now, and probably some of his team, as well.  A muscle twitches in his cheek.  It is what it is.

He traces the word HYDRA, fingers trembling with suppressed anger, creeping exhaustion.  May missed it too, had even let Ward in as she did with few others.  He doesn’t know if that comforts him or not.  Maybe Ward was just that good.  But maybe if she hadn’t been so busy observing  _Coulson_ , reporting back on every sleepless night, every terrible thing he discovered about what had been done to him, she might have seen Ward for what he was.

If she’d only been here, if he hadn’t driven her away, if he hadn’t laid into her so viciously –

_It’s also our job to determine right from wrong.  Watching someone in agony, searching for the truth, not saying anything – that’s **wrong**.  And don’t tell me it’s because you care so damn much!_

Coulson shakes his hand, grimacing.  The landscape photo is harder than it looks, and his hand throbs from the blow.  He examines the new crack in the glass, breathing out heavily, then looks down at his hand.  Red marks bloom on his knuckles.

His mouth tightens.  There’s work to do, and he’s wasting time.

* * *

Coulson’s floating on his back in the stale chlorinated water, arms and legs doing just enough to keep him afloat.  His undershirt and boxers cling to him like a second skin, but each shift of his arm or small kick of his leg sends the second skin rippling, like it doesn’t truly fit him.

Sleep.  Still evading him.  It’s an enemy he can’t pin down.  So he’s out here instead, unable to bear trying to sleep when he knows it will be fruitless.

The motel pool lights are off.  It’s two in the morning.  There was a sign up on the wall that said pool hours ended at 9 PM, but Coulson really, really doesn’t care about that right now.

He cares about T.A.H.I.T.I.

Did he do this to himself?

No… no, the video had been quite clear about that.   _He_  had been clear about that, in the video he didn’t remember making, about the months or maybe years of work that had been erased from his memory.   _Under no circumstances should these procedures or drugs be administered to anyone, ever._

And they’d done this to him anyway.

Another shallow kick, a sweep of his arms.  The water laps against the sides of his face, slicking his short hair down, threatening to splash into his eyes.  

The stars are faint.  Too much light pollution.  He doesn’t know what he expected, looking up at the sky above.  The Bifrost, maybe, Asgardian technology brilliant high above them.  S.H.I.E.L.D. satellites blinking - except they aren’t S.H.I.E.L.D. anymore.  And if they were, would that comfort him, knowing what’s been done to him?

Whatever he expected about T.A.H.I.T.I., it wasn’t this.

He sees the video again, his own face earnest, almost frightened.  It’s not an expression he’s used to seeing on himself.  Disquieting doesn’t begin to cover it.  

He rolls over in the shallow pool, submerges himself with a few kicks and a spread of his arms.  The world is quiet here, and for a moment, it’s almost enough that he’s drifting weightless in the water, that he’s drifting –  _he’s drifting –_

Coulson shoots up above the surface, sucking in a deep breath.  That’s the reason he hasn’t been sleeping well, because when he does, he drifts – back into a no-man’s land of false memories too comforting to be real and real ones too horrific to face.

Admitting it doesn’t make it any easier.  He lifts himself out of the pool, climbing over the edge, and gropes for the towel he left next to the pool.  He makes a decent effort to dry himself off before letting himself back into his room, where he turns on the light and catches sight of himself in the mirror next to the door.

He looks… old.  Maybe it’s the days of running, the frantic planning, but whatever it is, he looks like hell.  Purple shadows under his eyes and wrinkles at their edges, new stubble graying his tightened jaw, everything about him worn and tired from the slump of his shoulders to the wet rumpled clothes plastered to a middle-aged man’s body.  The man in the mirror looks defeated, and Coulson scowls at him.

He shuts off the light and changes into a clean set of clothes, and when he gets into bed he resolutely rolls to face the wall without a mirror.

* * *

Coulson startles, caught in that uncomfortable space between wakefulness and nearly falling asleep.  Something’s jolted him awake, and he groans, trying to remember it, wondering if it would be better to forget.  Whatever it is, he’s awake.

He’s so damn tired of not sleeping.

He should be glad, he tries to tell himself.  They’ve stopped Garrett.  Ward’s captured and Hydra is crushed, at least for now.  They’ve done what they set out to do.

He glances over to his desk, where the cube from Fury is waiting.  He spent hours going through it tonight, trying to prepare himself for what’s coming.  He’s barely scratched the surface.

Director Coulson… it’s strange to think about.  He hadn’t exactly expected a promotion after his explosion at Fury.   _Stupid!  Stupid!  And cruel!_   Then again, Fury never did do anything Coulson expected.

He half-smiles, shaking his head.  He’d spat that T.A.H.I.T.I. was supposed to revive a fallen Avenger, but he wasn’t prepared for Fury’s answer.   _Exactly._   That shut him up.

In all this time, before and after New York, that had never occurred to him.  

Coulson shifts uneasily under the covers.  He’s bruised and battered from the day’s events, but that’s not why he’s still awake, not really.  It’s just… it’s been a very strange year.  Stranger for not remembering half of it.  Stranger than that for the parts he discovered later.  He wonders if he’s fine yet.

He closes his eyes, tries to think of something soothing.  The ocean comes to mind.  The coast trip with Audrey.  They’d been looking forward to it for weeks, a chance for him to get away from the immense strangeness of his work, a chance for the two of them to be together, walking along the sand and watching the waves come in.  But he remembers something she said.   _Just remember, don’t expect to go swimming._

He’d been surprised.   _I thought everyone went to the beach to swim_ , he’d joked, thinking of her in that blue bikini.

She had been serious, uncharacteristically so.   _It’s too cold, but that’s not all of it.  People drown off the Oregon Coast, Phil.  Riptides.  Sneaker waves.  It’s beautiful, but I don’t want you going in.  Promise me?_

He’d promised.  But he’d fallen into a sea far deeper than what she’d warned him about.

Dark waves in his mind’s eye, cold ocean waters, and far below, something ancient, something buried.  There’s an itching sensation in his mind, a nagging feeling of forgetting.  He’s damn sick of it.  What else is left to remember  _now_?  Hasn’t he found it all yet?  Every awful thing lurking in his head, crossed off from his conscious memory, what more can be left?  

But the ocean he sees is turbulent, raw and violent, vicious maelstroms everywhere, and the itching sensation grows fiercer.

It’s enough that he sits up in bed, opens his eyes, takes a ragged breath to try and shake the vision.  His hands bunch up the blankets at his sides, and his heart pounds.   _Something’s_  coming through, making his fingers twist in the sheets, causing him to sweat, and through it he feels his heart sink.

Coulson had thought knowing was better.  He doesn’t know if he believes that anymore.  Doesn’t know if he wants to know why he’s getting out of bed, why he’s making his way downstairs, what he’s looking for.

It’s dark downstairs, abandoned.  Everyone else is sleeping.  There’s no surprise there.

There’s no surprise in the drawings he finds in the glass, either.  He reaches out a hand to them.  He knows them.  They make him shiver with recognition.  

He finds a knife, and he finds a wall.  His hand vibrates around the knife’s handle with an utter and powerful need, and he carves.

Lines and circles, diamonds, patterns expanding outward from him like a growing ripple, and he carves and he carves and he carves.  He knows what he’s doing and he doesn’t at the same time, and as the wall blooms with his writing, he wonders which is worse.

_The cost is far too great._

Hours later Coulson looks up at the wall, drops the knife to the floor and sinks to his knees.  He gazes at the lines tracking their way over its whole surface.  He touches one line, blows away the dust from the carving with a puff of breath.

When he speaks, quietly, into the empty room, it’s with mingled resignation and relief.

“I’m not fine.” 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm from Portland and couldn't resist being more specific with the Portland-related content. Also, enjoy the angst!


End file.
